“Thanks,” Cone says. “Nice talking to you.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” Davenport says. “You got something on the mob’s connection?”
“Not a thing,” Cone assures him. “If I come across anything, you’ll be the first to know.”
“I won’t hold my breath,” the city cop says.
Cone hangs up and stares at Cleo thoughtfully.
“Something stinks,” he tells the cat. “And it ain’t garbage, kiddo.”
Five
Sally Stalls Vic Angelo and Mario Corsini for two weeks. It’s a gamble; if she can’t come up with a winner, then she loses Steiner Waste Control and access to inside secrets in trash collected from Bechtold Printing. And that’ll be the end of her Big Chance.
She conned the two villains in Angelo’s car outside the funeral home where Jake lay in his coffin.
“Look,” she says to them, “I got a boyfriend on Wall Street. He’s a lawyer in the Mergers and Acquisitions Department of a big investment banker. I won’t tell you which one. Anyway, he gets in on the ground floor on mergers, takeovers, and buyouts. There’s a lot of money to be made if you get advance notice of these deals. I’ve been making a mint. You guys let me keep Steiner Waste Control, and I’ll feed you the same inside information I get from my boyfriend.”
The two men stare at her, then turn to look at each other.
“I don’t like it,” Angelo says. “Insider trading is a federal rap. Who needs it?”
“Wait a minute, Vic,” Corsini says. “The insider here is this girlie’s boyfriend. If he wants to shoot off his mouth, it’s his problem. The people he tells can claim they bought on a stock tip.”
“Right!” Sally says enthusiastically. “I tell you it’s foolproof. I’ve played four deals and haven’t lost a cent.”
Corsini gives her a two-bit smile. “And you invest for the boyfriend and then kick back to him. Have I got it straight, girlie?”
“Of course,” she says. “Whaddya think? And don’t call me girlie.”
“I still don’t like it,” Angelo says, slowly peeling away the band from one of his fat Havanas. “Trouble with the Feds I don’t want.”
“Wouldn’t hurt to take one little flier, Vic,” Corsini says.
That’s when the shtarkers agree to give her two weeks to come up with a winning tip. If she can do that, they’ll talk a deal. If she fails, they’ll buy Steiner Waste Control-on their terms. Sally goes along with that; she’s got no choice.
By this time she’s got Terry Mulloy and Leroy Hamilton organized. Trash from Bechtold Printing is being delivered to her Smithtown garage, and the stuff she’s already pawed through is taken away and brought back to the Eleventh Avenue dump.
By the ninth day she’s getting panicky. She’s broken three fingernails grubbing through the Bechtold scrap, and all she’s found is worthless first proofs of prospectuses and mass mailings to stockholders. But then, on a Thursday night, she hits paydirt.
There are crumpled pages with the letterhead of Snellig Firsten Holbrook. They outline a suggested plan for a leveraged buyout of an outfit called Trimbley amp; Diggs, Inc. Financing will include junk bonds and a hefty cash payment by company executives who are going to take T amp;D private as soon as they get control. The purpose, as far as Sally can make out, is to sell off or develop valuable shorefront real estate.
She looks up Trimbley amp; Diggs in that day’s Wall Street Journal and finally finds the stock listed in Nasdaq. It’s selling for four dollars a share. The next day she calls Paul Ramsey, tells him to buy 9,000 shares of T amp;D; she’ll get the cash to him as soon as possible. Then she calls Mario Corsini at the number he gave her. He isn’t in, but she leaves a message, and he calls back in fifteen minutes. Sally tells him she’s ready for a meet.
He says they don’t want to be seen with her in public, and that’s okay with Sally. She suggests they come out late that night to her Smithtown home, say at midnight when her mother and housekeeper will be asleep, and they can talk without being interrupted or overheard.
Corsini doesn’t like it. He implies her place may be bugged. He can’t take the chance.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Sally says disgustedly. “Why would I want to do a stupid thing like that? I’m in this thing deeper than you are. Look, if it’ll make you feel any better, you drive out there, park in the driveway, and I’ll come out and sit in the car. Your Cadillac’s not bugged, is it?”
Corsini mutters darkly that he doesn’t think so, but these days who the hell knows? Finally he agrees that they’ll drive out that night and try to arrive at midnight. Sally gives him the address and directions on how to find her home.
She gets home early, fills a plate with the shrimp salad Martha has prepared, and takes it upstairs to have dinner with her mother. She and Becky watch the evening news on TV while they’re eating, and then Sally goes downstairs while Martha gets her mother ready for bed. She works on her records and books in the den. Steiner Waste Control, with the addition of Pitzak’s territory, is making a bundle. Jake would have been happy.
By eleven o’clock the house is silent. Sally sits quietly, plotting how she’s going to get the cash to Paul Ramsey and how much, if anything, she should give to Dotty Rosher. That bubblehead has written a letter to Sally, claiming she’s broke, and after all she did for Jake, she figures she should have something for her time and trouble. And silence.
Sally decides to turn Dotty’s letter over to the Steiners’ attorney, Ivan Belzig. He’s a toughie and will know exactly how to handle an attempted shakedown like that.
At fifteen minutes before midnight, she’s standing in the dimly lighted living room, peering out a window at the graveled driveway. It’s almost ten minutes after twelve when the silver gray limousine comes purring up and coasts to a stop. The headlights are doused.
Sally snaps on the porch light and steps out the door. But before she can get down the steps, she sees Vic Angelo and Mario Corsini get out of the Cadillac and start toward the house, looking about them.
“You decided to come inside?” Sally asks as they approach.
“Yeah,” Angelo says. “I figure you’re straight. You’d be a fool not to be.”
She leads the way into the den and offers them a drink, but they decline.
“We won’t be here that long,” Angelo says.
Both men light up cigars, Vic one of his thick Havanas and Mario a short, twisted stogie that looks like a hunk of black rope. The air grows fetid, and Sally switches the air conditioner to exhaust. She comes back to sit behind the desk. She looks at Vic Angelo, suddenly shocked at how much he reminds her of Jake.
“So?” she says briskly. “Have you decided? You want in? If you do, I’ve got a hot tip for you.”
“Nah,” Angelo says. “The stock market ain’t for us. I talked to my lawyer about it. He says the risk of our being racked up on an insider trading charge is zip. But if we do get involved, then maybe the Feds start looking into our other activities-and that we can do without. So we’re turning down your proposition.”
She stares at the two men, feeling as if she’s been kicked in the cruller. They return her stare with all the expression of Easter Island statues.
“So,” Angelo goes on, “we take over Steiner Waste Control. My lawyer is drawing up the papers now. We’ll pay you a nice price.”
“A nice price!” Sally explodes. “My father started that business with one lousy, secondhand pickup truck. He worked his ass off to build it up, doing the driving and loading himself. And after I joined him, I worked just as hard. How can you put a ‘fair price’ on that? Goddamn it, that dump belongs to the Steiner family.”